Charles Krauthammer on Benghazi emails

Charles Krauthammer is calling a newly released email “a smoking document” that the conservative columnist says shows the White House was involved in a coverup of the Benghazi attacks.

GOP lawmakers on Tuesday seized on the documents, which contained an email from deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes discussing “goals” for then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s appearances on the Sunday shows following the attack.

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Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday evening, Krauthammer said the email shows that the Obama administration fabricated its contention that the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, were a reaction to a YouTube video because the revelation of a terrorist attack would have been politically costly to the president’s reelection campaign.

“We now have the smoking document,” Krauthammer said, “which is the White House saying, ‘We’re pushing the video because we don’t want to blame it on the failure of our policies.’”

Rhodes’ email was sent to several Obama administration officials, including White House press secretary Jay Carney, with the subject line, “RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET.” Rhodes in the email said two of Rice’s objectives would be, “To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy” and “To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”

The documents were first obtained by Judicial Watch. According to Judicial Watch, other Obama administration officials who received the email include David Plouffe and Dan Pfeiffer.

Krauthammer said the documents on Benghazi would have hurt Obama, who often said Al Qaeda was “on the run.” The Fox News contributor said the set of documents “exposes a coverup of a coverup,” calling it a “serious offense.”

Senate Armed Services Committee member Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Rhodes’ “email is a smoking gun. It shows political operatives in the White House working to create a political narrative at odds with the facts.”

Graham said the White House intentionally “provided the most beneficial political story for the president” instead of telling the truth.

Armed Services Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and a spokesman for House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) also expressed concerns that the emails showed the White House was pushing a false narrative.

An Obama administration official issued a response later on Wednesday, saying that the email shows that the administration was provided “the best assessment of what was happening at the time.”

“The content reflects what the administration was saying at the time and what we understood to be the facts at the time,” Bernadette Meehan, National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement.

“Unlike those who insist on politicizing the events in Benghazi, our focus remains on ensuring that a tragedy like this isn’t repeated in Libya or anywhere else in the world,” the statement continued. “In our view, these documents only serve to reinforce what we have long been saying: that in the days after September 11, 2012, we were concerned by unrest occurring across the region and that we provided our best assessment of what was happening at the time.”